IT'S TIME TO MOVE!!!

Hello friends!!!  Thank you for stopping by here.  Now that I have a better idea of how to blog and how I want my blog to look and all that good stuff, I have moved my blog over to wordpress which you can access by going to www.happyinkdesigns.wordpress.com or by clicking here.  I hope you will hop on over and check out my new site.  You can follow me over there by clicking on the "Follow By Email" tab over on the right hand side.  Thank you all for your love and support and for helping me get my toes wet in this wonderful world of blogging!!  Hope you see you there!!

A Note To Say Hello

Hello friends!!  Got a super easy card to share with you today.  I made this one to send to my aunt who is dealing with some health issues and I think it turned out perfectly!!

This was actually perfect timing because I had the Simon Says Stamp Flickr Challenge rolling around in my head which was called "Emboss It" this week so I started this card with embossing on my mind.  I used Handwritten Floral Greetings by Simon Says Stamp along with Horizontal Stitched Strips by My Favorite Things.

I used my Copic markers to color the lovely flower (V12, V15, V17).  I wasn't paying attention to staying in the lines because I knew I'd be cutting it out.

It drives me nuts when I forget to do this tiny little step.  It makes such a huge difference when you're not the best fussy cutter to go around the edge of your image with a black marker.  I used my Memento black marker to do this, but any marker will suffice.

I used gold embossing powder on the sentiment and I really liked the way the gold looked with the wood background.

I decided to use my favorite 40 lb. vellum from Ellen Hutson for the leaves along with the same gold embossing powder to tuck behind the flower to try and soften the overall look of this card.  

I had originally planned on using this Clustered Leaves die by Simon Says Stamp, but I just couldn't get it to look quite right.

I finally realized that it was the black trimmed flower that wasn't working for me.  Once I decided to heat emboss the flower to match the rest of the card, I was on a roll!!

So I colored the flower once again and fussy cut it out, once again and I was back in business.

All I had left to do was add some fun foam to the back of the card front and also behind the stitched strips where the sentiment was.  I chose a really pretty purple card stock from my paper stash that matched the flower beautifully.

 

I dropped the Clustered Leaves and added a few droplets and then my card was complete!  See, I told you this one was super easy.  Hope you enjoy!!

CASEing One of The Best

Ok, so I said in my last post that I would share with you the card I CASE'd from Online Card Classes.  I won't go into too much detail on this because I'm sure they want you to sign up for the class in order to learn how to create it.  BUT, I will share with you what I took from the class.  I've never in my life done any real watercoloring or any coloring of roses before so I was absolutely 100% in the dark on this one.  Which is why I decided to CASE this beautiful card created by Dawn Woleslagle.  If you want to see the original created by Dawn, click here to sign up for the OCC Watercolor for Card Makers class.  I was hoping that if I followed her step by step, I might actually learn when to shade and where to highlight, stuff like that.  They make it look so darn easy!!  I can't even figure out how to create the basic shape of a rose!!  Anyway, for my very first try, I don't think it turned out too terrible.  It certainly doesn't look anything like Dawn's card, but I'm ok with that.  I'm excited to CASE this one again in hopes that every time I do it, I'll understand a little more of the basic concept of creating a rose.  So without further ado, here is my first attempt at watercoloring flowers.

As lost as I was when I first set out to CASE this one, I actually had a lot of fun making it.  Dawn does such a beautiful job of explaining everything as she goes along.  I NEVER would have attempted this if it hadn't been for this class.  I highly recommend everyone taking this class.  If watercoloring isn't your thing, they have plenty of other classes that I'm sure you will find interesting.  You can check them all out by clicking here.

The products I used for this card were, of course, WPlus9's Coming Up Roses and Spring Blooms.  I used several distress inks as well.  I haven't really used either of these stamps sets yet until now.  How horrible is that?!?  I'll be honest with you, I was pretty intimidated by them!!  I'm not really a floral person so I just wasn't really sure how to make them look amazing, like everyone else I see that uses them does...  They are absolutely beautiful stamp sets though.  I look forward to using them again.

This experience brought a whole new level of love to my distress inks.  I knew how amazing they were for ink blending and watercoloring, but I've never really used them like this before.  When I've watercolored with them, it's mostly for backgrounds or to color an image in.  But to actually stamp the image in the color I'm using to fill the image, I don't think I've done that before.  You gotta remember, I'm still a newbie at card making.  I'm only a little under a year and a half in so there's sooo many techniques I haven't even experienced yet!!  That was a huge part of why I wanted to start a blog.  I wanted to keep track of all the new experiences I have.

From a distance, this doesn't look all that bad!!  I NEVER in a million years would have imagined that I made this card.  ME!  I'm still in shock.  I can't even express to you how grateful I am for these online card classes.  They're simply amazing.  If I can go from never before watercoloring florals, to this card I'm sharing with you today, just by watching this class, AND on my first try, then anyone can do this.  Anyone!!  Yes, they are THAT good.  I would put money on it.

But like I said, I won't go into too much detail on this one.  If you want to make this beautiful card or are interested in learning how to watercolor, then you definitely want to check this class out.  

And that's it folks!!  Thank you for stopping by.  If you have any questions or just wanna share some love, please leave me a comment.  I love chatting with you! 

Where Do I Even Begin...?

Hi guys!!!!  Wow, did I get ever so sidetracked or what..?  I set out to play with a few different mediums using the stamp set Spring Flowers by Simon Says Stamp (see my last "Sneak Peek" post), and I ended up...  well, everywhere BUT playing with Spring Flowers... I did, however,  watch a few days of the Watercolor For Card Makers class by Online Card Classes!!  I absolutely LOVE OCC.  Every class I've taken so far has been packed FULL of great information.   And they make it look so easy!!  I was so pumped and confident after watching day  7.  I thought for sure I could do what they were teaching! Well..., I  attempted to CASE one of Dawn Woleslagle's floral cards.  That was my first mistake.  If you've never watercolored flowers before, it probably isn't the wisest choice to go straight for the best of the best... I should've started out maybe practicing with day 1.  Lesson learned.  But I was in the moment and like I said, I was feeling confident so I went for it!!  That will be my next post..  It wasn't as big of a disaster as I was envisioning but I'm certainly not entering it into any watercoloring challenges any time soon.  Check out my next post to see how this ended.   But anyway, I didn't quite make my way back to my original plan just yet.  I then  proceeded to make a couple other cards that had nothing to do with that Spring Flowers set and THEN I came back and finished what I started, which ended in this card here.  I'm a lot like the dog, Dug from the movie UP.  If you don't know who Dug is, click here to see a short clip. I'm on a mission to complete a task and then all of a sudden, SQUIRREL!!!  

So let's start with the Spring Flowers set since that was my intention.  I wanted to play around with some different watercoloring techniques.  I started out with my Zig watercolor brushes.  I quickly learned that they are NOT my favorite.  And that's not to say they won't end up being my favorite, but for now, let's just say I didn't spend too much time with them.  I am an equal opportunist however, and I do intend to spend a little more time with them because I think if I actually learned how to use them, I might just change my mind about how I feel towards them..

Then I moved on to my Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors.  I knew I liked these, I just love how vibrant the colors can be.  Or they can be muted down by adding more water. At this point I didn't know if I wanted to stay in the lines or just cover the image with color.  So I did a little of both.  I still had no idea what I was going to do with all these images..  Truth be told, I still don't.  But that's ok! 

Next, I busted out my Mission watercolor palette and dabbled in a few different color combos.  I really haven't watercolored that much in my whole year and 5 months of card making experience.  I was more experimenting with combining colors and seeing what would happen if I added this color to that or more water or less.  This thought process is what lead me to take a peak at the Online Card Classes Watercolor class.  I purchased the class quite a while ago, but haven't really had time to play around with it just yet.  Before I got totally sidetracked, I played with a couple more watercolor techniques.  Next on my list was Distress Inks!!

I'd say this is my favorite technique so far!!  It just doesn't get any easier than this.   I really liked Peeled paint and Mowed Lawn for the leaves.  And Victorian Velvet made for such a beautiful mauve colored rose.  

Lastly, before moving on to my Copics, I used my distress inks one last time to do some ink blending.  I think I am in love with ink blending.  You can have two totally different colors come together and blend so flawlessly, it's almost magical.  And it's not just distress inks that you can do this with.  I used many Simon Says Stamp ink pads as well.  I cut these in rows so that I didn't cross contaminate the colors and also so that I got that really bright concentrated color at the base of the flower.  

Once I was done with the coloring, I fussy cut all the images out.  I tried cutting them out using my Scan N Cut, but it just wasn't working out for me so I fussy cut them instead.  These were pretty basic shapes so fussy cutting wasn't a problem for me. It's definitely not my first choice, but at this point, it was my only choice..  And just when you thought you've had enough...

I bring in the Copics!!!

There's just something about copic coloring that totally melts me heart.  I love the control I have, I love the flicking in color, I love all the different possibilities, and bringing a black and white image to life.  I love everything about them!!!  

I could color for days without coming up for air.  And I probably would if it weren't for this little thing called a FAMILY that I have to tend to.  I can't believe school is starting on Monday already!!  Where did this summer go?!!?

And then when all the coloring was complete, the real fun began.  Picking and choosing which colors to put together and which flowers go with what...  Can watercolored flowers be mixed with copic colored flowers??

Check out all this color!!  I LOVE it!!  And then a card started to take shape.

I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but it took me awhile to figure out how to keep that cute little curly cue in the long, straight leaves.  I didn't want a one layered card and I knew I wouldn't be able to cut around that tiny little thing, so I did the only thing I could think to do.  I stamped the leaves on the card front and then layered another colored image over the top!!  Voila!!  Problem solved.   

To finish this off, I added some foam adhesive behind some of the images and the sentiment.  I attached a few sequins here and there and some mini rhinestones on the 3 smallest flowers to add some sparkle.  I used the Spectrum Noir Crystal Clear glitter pen on all of the flowers which gave it even more sparkle.  The sentiment came from the Choose Happy set from Simon Says Stamp.  I really like how simple this card looks.  If I were to do it over again, I'd probably add some color behind the flowers.  Either a light watercolor wash, or maybe some ink blending.  The Clarity brushes would have been perfect!!  Ok, I know what I'm doing for my next card now.  I have a craft fair coming up on Labor Day weekend so I'll be making as many cards as I can between now and then.  

 I know this was kind of a loooong post, and I'm working on that.  I still don't know what my blogging style is but I'm going to try and keep it more short and sweet in my posts that follow.  It took me awhile to get this post up but I do still have a family to attend to so all I can do is post when I have the time.  School is starting on Monday so I'm not sure if that's going to give me more time or if it's going to make me even busier since I like to help out in class each week and we also have football practice every night...  Well, you know the song and dance if you've had kids so I won't bore you with the details.  My point is,  this took me so long to get posted.  I gotta get better at this and when I say better, I mean faster, if I ever want to have time to post.  I'm hoping to get some type of schedule here one of these days.  Until then, I will post whenever I can.  Like I said, I have a craft fair coming up so most of my free time will be dedicated to making cards so if I don't get many posts up, that is most likely why.  At least I'll have a lot of material to post about!!  Even if it isn't until after the holiday weekend.  Thank you so much for your patience and thanks for taking the time to read my lengthy post.  I know time is so valuable in everyone's lives whether you have kids or not, whether you work or not, no matter what we all do everyday that shapes our lives, time is one of the most important aspects of anyone's life.  We gotta use it wisely...  

Sneak Peek

Hi there!!  I wanted to give you a sneak peek at what I'm working on. I didn't have anything to report today since I'm not quite done so I thought I'd at least let ya in on what I've been up to.  I think I pulled out almost every ink pad I have for this one...  Well, hopefully I'll get more than one (card) out of this...

I've got some emboss resist ink blending going on over here..

And some not so great water coloring going on over here...  (notice the not too close, kinda dark corner shot?  Yeah, that's on purpose.)

I'm planning on Copic coloring some of the images from this set in the morning so I can get a feel for a few different mediums.  I'll be sharing all of this in my next YouTube video as well.  All in all, I'll be happy if I can get at least a card or two done by tomorrow. It's waaaay past my bedtime so I think I'm gonna call it a day. I hope to see ya, well, later today since it's already after  1 a.m.  Yikes!!  Nighty night!!

Feeling So Grateful

Hello again!!!  I'm so excited to share this new journey into the blog world with you!  I've been contemplating starting a blog for some time now and I FINALLY decided to take the plunge, thanks to a lovely, sweet fellow crafter that so kindly walked me through my very first post.  I'm so blessed to have met Michele (via telephone) and I encourage you to click here to take a look at her blog.  She is so incredibly talented!!  Her CAS cards are absolutely stunning.  Wait, what am I saying?  Most of you, if not all of you viewing this post right now, are here because of my wonderful new friend, Michele.  You have all been so encouraging and welcoming.  Your words make my heart smile.  Thank you for you support.  And thank YOU Michele for sending these lovely ladies my way!!  I can't even tell you how grateful I'm feeling at this moment.  I've never really done anything like this before so please, bare with me as I stumble my way through.  I'm really looking forward to meeting fellow card makers/crafters, it's one of the main reasons I wanted to start a blog and I'm off to an amazing start!   I've been making cards since March of 2015 (I know, I'm a total newb) and I'm loving every minute of it.  I love everything about it.  I've learned to watercolor, and ink blend, I get to color and emboss and stamp and ink smoosh and there's so many cool techniques that I've learned and so many still to learn.  I do still have a family to attend to, but every free second I have, I'm in my craft room.  So my plan is to post pictures of my latest cards and then describe how I made them.  I also post video tutorials on my YouTube channel whenever I can so I hope you'll check that out as well.  I do hope you'll follow along on this journey with me!!  Ok, enough babbling..  Let's get to it!!  This is the most recent card I've made.  

I used Floral & Flutter by Concord & 9th for the butterfly and Hand Lettered Hello by WPlus9 for the Hello.  

For this first card I thought it would be fun to make my own striped patterned paper so I used my Misti and the stamp called Wide Stripes by Simon Says Stamp.

For some reason, I had to stamp this 4 or 5 times in order to get good coverage, but I still really liked it.  

I used Mermaid Lagoon and Wilted Violet distress inks to color the images and I LOVED this color combination!!  

Check out that color up close!!  Isn't it gorgeous?!!?

I thought about leaving parts of the die in tact just because I loved the color so much and wanted to see more of it, but in the end, I popped out all the pieces and just went with the intended shape.  I really like this die.  They're both beautiful shapes.  

I felt like it needed something else so I added some thick 40 lb. vellum from Ellen Hutson.  My all time favorite vellum, FYI... and left a little border around it.  

I just recently purchased one of those mechanical embossers, I think they're called, and really wanted to use it, but I just wasn't feeling it for this particular card and this is when I decided to go with the Hand Lettered Hello die instead.  

Then I just added some silver thread behind the butterfly and those cool little clear water drop looking thingies (I think that's their official name) and a strip of silver glitter paper to tie in with the silver "Hello" greeting and called it a day!!!  Well, no, I didn't actually ...  I decided to make another card while I had everything there at my fingertips.  I hadn't used the 2 flowers that I cut out and colored so I started off with those and came up with this!!

 The black and white striped background isn't quite the same as the first card because I didn't use a stamp and it isn't a patterned paper...  For this card I used the Classic Stripe Cover die by Mama Elephant.  I absolutely LOVE this die!!  I can have a striped background whenever I want and in what ever color I want!!  I would say this die is on my Must Have list.   I used a different Hello die, this one is called Painted Hello by Simon Says Stamp. 

I wanted to use the same elements for this card so I traced around the butterfly onto the vellum and after cutting it out, I rubbed Versa Mark all along the edge and then dipped it in silver embossing powder.  I had never done this before, and I wasn't quite sure about it when I first did it, but after I wiped some of the excess off and heat set it, I was actually pretty happy with it!!

I wasn't quite sure how to attach the butterfly without adhesive being visible so as I was looking through my bin of embellishments, I came across a bunch of these little clothes pins and I instantly knew that was it!!  You wouldn't see any adhesive because I wasn't going to put any adhesive on it!!  

Again, I added some silver thread behind the butterfly and attached these beautiful silver rhinestones and more of the clear, water drop looking thingies and I had myself a card!!!  Thank you for taking a look at my cards today!!  I'm hoping to have a step by step tutorial for these on my YouTube channel by the end of the weekend (but more realistically by mid-week) so I hope you'll pop on over there and check that out as well.  Once I have it uploaded, you will be able to click Here and it will take you right to it.  

And.... that's a wrap!!  Off to enjoy dinner with my in-laws tonight.  They're in town for the weekend to beat the heat.  It was 116 degrees in Lake County yesterday, can you believe that?!?  It's been really nice here for the past few days, but our max temp is more like 75 degrees.  One of the many reasons I love my hometown.  

Ok, I'm REALLY going this time!!  Have a great rest of your weekend and I hope to see y'all soon!!!  God Bless ~

Here I Go!!!

I'm so excited!!  I was Spotted by Simon Says Stamp!!  

This was one of my favorite cards to make so far!!  I used Copic markers to color these adorable little animals and I used distress inks and a stencil to do the background.  I made this card a few months ago, but I just recently uploaded the video tutorial on my YouTube channel and I got excited all over again.  The stamp set I used was Stacking Animals by Simon Says Stamp.  The stencil is from Winnie & Walter called "Scenery: Pattern Of The Rings".  I also used Lawn Fawn's Into the Woods for the "smile" bubble.  If you want to see a step by step tutorial, please check out my youtube channel here.

I'm not quite sure how to do this yet, but I'd like to include links to all the products I used, like I do on my youtube videos.  So if anyone is out there reading this and knows a simple way to list links to all the products used, please feel free to share that tid bit with me.  Now back to my card.  Aren't these little animals just so darn cute?!?

Like I said, I used Copic markers to color the animals.  I've listed all the colors on my YouTube channel and will add them here as soon as I find out how...

I used Festive Berries, Spiced Marmalade, Mustard Seed, Crushed Olive, Peacock Feathers, Salty Ocean and Dusty Concord for the background.

And then I heat embossed the "Smile" bubble.  And that's pretty much it! 

Ok, I'm going to hit Publish now for the very first time so cross your fingers!!!

I hope to have visitors soon!!  Wish me luck...

Misty